Multiple-stakes winners Greatbullsoffire and Phlash Phelps are among 49 horses nominated to a quartet of stakes worth $300,000 in purses on Maryland Pride Day, Saturday, Aug. 19, at Laurel Park.

Highlighting closing weekend of Laurel’s 33-day summer meet are four $75,000 stakes for Maryland-bred/sired horses – the Star de Naskra for 3-year-olds and the Miss Disco for 3-year-old fillies at seven furlongs on the main track, and the Find for 3-year-olds and up and All Brandy for females 3 and older at a mile and an eighth on the world-class turf course. Read more

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Skeedattle Associates’ Just Howard, winner of the Grade 3 Commonwealth Derby at Laurel Park as part of a four-race win streak over the summer of 2017, took home top honors as Maryland-bred Horse of the Year, champion 3-year-old male and champion turf horse. The announcments were made at the inaugural Renaissance Awards, a cooperative effort between the Maryland Horse Breeders Association, Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association and Maryland Jockey Club created to recognize excellence in Thoroughbred racing and breeding in Maryland in 2017. The event was held on Monday evening, Feb. 12, at the Sagamore Pendry hotel in Baltimore.

Longtime Maryland breeder Howard Bender, one of the state’s most admired and respected figures, earned his fifth Maryland Breeder of the Year award posthumously for a year in which runners he bred earned more than $1.2 million and included Maryland-bred champion finalists Blu Moon Ace and Just Howard.

Bolt d’Oro, a multiple Grade 1 winner, and Good Magic, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile-G1, were both assigned the high weight of 126 pounds to top The Jockey Club’s Annual Top 2-Year-Old Rankings, formerly known as the Experimental Free Handicap, for 2017. The highest weighted filly, at 123 pounds, was Caledonia Road, winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies-G1.